Joao Goulart

Joao Goulart (1 March 1918-6 December 1976) was President of Brazil from 8 September 1961 to 1 April 1964, interrupting Rainieri Mazzilli's two terms. He was deposed in a 1964 military coup, and he was the last left-wing president of Brazil until Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2003.

Biography
Joao Goulart was born in Itacurubi, Brazil on 1 March 1918, and he became a lawyer before joining the nationalist right-wing Brazilian Labor Party. He was Minister of Labor from 1953 to 1954, and served as Getulio Vargas' Vice-President from 1955 to 1961. An incompetent politician whose prominence rested largely on the patronage of Vargas, he was unable to avoid his country's economic decline as indicated by an annual inflation rate of over 100% and economic growth of merely 2%. His period in office saw the polarization of Brazilian society into various hostile factions and interest groups. Opposed by most governors of the federal states, his challenge to the elites through the nationalization of oil refineries and other populist measures triggered a little-resisted military coup in 1964. He died in Mercedes, Argentina in 1976, with the official explanation being a heart attack, but poisoning being suspected.